A Nurse And Author Shares Her Journey Through Breast Cancer Treatment

Olivette MO

08 April, 2022

8:39 AM

Description

Press release from the St. Louis County Library: April 7, 2022 The St. Louis County Library Foundation's Gale Medical Arts Lecture Series presents bestselling author, New York Times contributor and RN Theresa Brown for a discussion and signing of her memoir "Healing: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient." The event will take place on Thursday, April 21, at 7:00 p.m. at Library Headquarters, 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd. The program is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase at the event from the Novel Neighbor. Face masks will be required for all attendees. Bestselling author Theresa Brown tells a poignant and intensely personal story about breast cancer. She brings readers along with her from the mammogram that would change her life through her diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. Despite years of experience as an oncology and hospice nurse, she finds herself continually surprised by the lack of compassion in the medical maze. Why is she expected to wait over a long weekend to hear the results of her cancer tests if they are ready? Where is the empathy from caregivers? Why is she so often left in the dark about procedures and treatments? At times she's mad at herself for not speaking up and asking for what she needs but knows that being labeled a "difficult" patient could mean she gets worse care. As she did in her book "The Shift," Brown draws us into her work with the unforgettable details of her daily life—the needles, the chemo drugs, the rubber gloves, the frustrated patients—but from her new perch as a patient, she also takes a look back with rare candor at some of her own cases as a nurse and considers what she didn't know then and what she could have done better. THERESA BROWN, RN, author of the bestseller "The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives" and has been a regular contributor to the New York Times She has been a guest on MSNBC Live and NPR's "Fresh Air." She lectures nationally and internationally on issues related to nursing, health care, and end of life. The Gale Medical Arts Lecture Series at the St. Louis County Library was founded in 2015 by Dr. Arthur Gale with the purpose of increasing the public's knowledge and understanding of medicine and health care. Program sites are accessible. With at least two weeks' notice, accommodations will be made for persons with disabilities. Call 314-994-3300 or contact us. This press release was produced by the St. Louis County Library. The views expressed here are the author's own.